If we are honest, many of us consider ourselves to be rather lazy, still haunted by those school reports that said “must try harder!” So it might surprise you if I suggest that much of what we do comes unstuck not because we don’t try hard enough, but because we try too hard, or at least try too hard in the wrong sort of way. We aim too high, too quickly, being prematurely concerned with correctness and results at the expense of practice and process.

Where does this perfectionist task-master come from? I suspect it is the highly toxic combination of a lack of confidence and a subtle sense of unworthiness. So instead of wholeheartedly embracing things, as is our birthright, we snatch at life in a sort of smash-and-grab raid before those in authority deem us imposters and ask us to leave, preferably by the back door

Manjusvara, 1953 – 2011 English-born Buddhist writer